


It Only Takes a Moment

by Galaxy_Eyes



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Awkwardness, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Female Reader, Female Scout, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Blood, Mild Language, One Shot, POV Female Character, Pre-Relationship, Reader-Insert, cross-faction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-08 08:00:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13453896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galaxy_Eyes/pseuds/Galaxy_Eyes
Summary: You're a RED female Scout. One day in battle you're pretty severely injured, so you try to scramble and search for a health kit. Instead, you find the BLU Medic sprawled in a corner.





	It Only Takes a Moment

I ran away from the center of battle as quickly as I could, panting hard in the sweltering Arizona heat. I just got out of a close encounter with another Scout, and even though I managed to walk away victorious, I did not walk away unscathed. Dark bruises started to form all over my face and arms, and I felt a warm trickle of  blood seeping through my shirt and dripping down my legs. I needed to keep running, even though my body was aching and it’s getting harder and harder for me to breathe. Frantic thoughts kept racing through my head. Our Medic is too far away, I have to go and heal someplace safe. My teammates need me, and I’m definitely more useful alive than stuck in respawn. I haphazardly rushed past some rocky outcrops into one of the nearest buildings. Surely there has to be a medikit around here somewhere —

Just as I turned the corner, I froze.

In that moment it dawned on me that I must've went the wrong direction in an injured daze, since the walls around me were concrete, painted in muted greys and blues…and one of the other team's men was sprawled against the wall nearby.

It's their Medic…and he was bleeding even more profusely than I am. His eyes were half-closed and he was clutching several deep gashes on his chest. His other arm laid limply at his side, most likely it had been broken. The sound of his breathing was ragged and labored. He seemed to be too preoccupied with his wounds to notice me. There _is_ a medikit there, but it looked to be just of his reach.

A sense of dread fell over me. There could be more BLUs around here and I'd be easy picking for them in my weakened state. But...it felt wrong to leave somebody dying like this, especially a Medic, even if he wasn't from my own team. Our Medic supported us greatly in battle and was so rarely given help in return, yet he still always managed to hold his own. I held too much respect for our Medic and I considered him my ally and friend. This one, for all intents and purposes, appeared to be exactly like him; he had the same face, the same demeanor and behavior. Fighting him in the heat of battle was different — I couldn’t stand over him and finish him off as he bled to death.

So, in a moment of both sympathy and sheer obstinacy, I ended up doing the unthinkable — I decided to help him. I needed to stay cautious though, nobody would expect help from the opposite team in a situation like this. I swallowed and fervently hoped that the Administrator doesn't find out about this.

The instant I took a step towards him, his head snapped upwards and his eyes flew open. He swiftly grabbed his bonesaw with his good arm, hand shaking, and pointed its sharp, bloodied blade at me, grunting in pain as he did so.

“Don't come any closer,” he choked out in his thick German accent, giving me an intense glare with his steel-blue eyes. Blood began to trickle from the edge of his mouth. It would have been a fairly menacing threat if he hadn’t been in such a miserable state.

“I don't want to hurt you,” I told him, trying to maintain a steady voice...and realizing how stupid I must have just sounded with a pistol still in my hand. “Look, I'll put all of my weapons down.” I did just that, slowly taking my bat, pistol, and scattergun and putting them into a pile by my feet. I raised my hands up and gradually approached him. “See? Completely defenseless. I want to help you. I’m gonna grab that medikit over there and we can split it.”

I picked up the medikit and walked back to him. He was still eyeing me suspiciously, but he had lowered the bonesaw and seemed to have relaxed a little. I kneeled down slowly, trying not to worsen my own injuries, and started carefully applying some antiseptic to the gashes in his abdomen. He flinched at my touch and gave out a hiss of pain.

Things were fairly quiet for a few minutes as I cleaned and treated his wounds. The look of suspicion on his face soon turned into one of disbelief. “Why are you helping me?” He asked after a while.

I was silent for a moment as I thought of how I should respond to that. Did I even really know why myself? I said the first thing that came to mind that seemed sort of convincing.

“Honestly, I don’t like going after Medics —”

“What?!” He sharply cuts me off, sounding offended. “That’s no reason to help an enemy! And you don’t think we Medics can fight back?!”

It’s my turn to get offended now. “No! That’s not what I meant at all! I’ve seen you take down lots of Scouts!” I said, trying not to shudder from the memories as my face started to flush with irritation. It’s not like I haven’t seen how capable he is with a bonesaw and a syringe gun. “Hell, once I saw you gun down two Heavies — I’m still trying to figure out how the heck you pulled THAT one off”

He was taken completely off guard by that last statement. It took him a second to recall what battle I was even talking about, but once he did, he burst into raucous laughter. “Oh, Ja, I remember that day! I had been so inebriated I kept forgetting that I could use a medigun!” I couldn’t help but laugh too. His laughter soon sputtered into coughs, but he still manages to keep a faint smile on his face.

I hadn’t seen our own Medic smile so genuinely much before. It was very different from the wild grins he usually makes in battle. It looked...nice. He also had a very tired, weary look to his face though, with dark circles beneath his eyes and some rough looking stubble around his rather pale jawline. He must have been under a lot more stress than I thought; the slight greying in his hair might even be happening prematurely. I’d never really been so close to his face before; it made me a little self-conscious, and I realized that I had been staring at him silently for a little too long and he was giving me a strange look. Everything felt so surreal. I tried not to stare directly at him as an unpleasant warmth creeped into my cheeks.

Feeling a bit flustered, I started talking again as I applied bandages to his wounds and began cleaning some of my own. “What I meant was that I’m really grateful for what our Medic does...I don’t like the idea of gunning him down at point blank, even though I know you’re not really him. It seemed like too much of a cheap shot to kill someone when they’re down like this and unable to fight back.” I’m not used to being so touchy-feely even with my own teammates, much less a member of the opposite team, so I quickly try — and fail — to save myself some face. “Look, I know it’s not good battle tactics, but I just...I don’t know.”

He gave me a dry, mirthless chuckle, shaking his head slightly. “No it isn’t, Fräulein, and I would strongly advise against you doing this again. You must be new here...the battlefield is no place for this sort of mercy.” I knew this of course. I was intensely aware of this reality every day on the battlefield. It’s just that on a much deeper level, I guess I must have wished it didn’t always have to be true. I wasn’t a stranger to the brutality of combat; I had been working for Reliable Excavation and Demolition for several months now. But for some reason that we weren’t allowed to know, in this dusty patch of land in the middle of nowhere, the other team I fought every day was basically identical to my team — the people I’ve grown to consider my friends — and we were constantly stuck in a never-ending cycle of dying and being revived. It all came as a huge shock at first, and even though I’d hardened myself to it over time, it still made me feel uneasy sometimes.

“Anyway, your arm looks broken,” I say, trying to change the topic and get back to the task at hand. He briefly looked down at his twisted arm and back at me, giving me an exasperated _No, Really?_ look on his face. I just rolled my eyes and continued. “I don’t know enough first aid for that sort of thing, think you could show me how to use that medigun to fix it?”

“Alright...it is very easy to use. Just point it at me and hold the handle down. Be careful with the tube though, it’s still attached to my pack.”

I did as he said, gently picking up the medigun that had been flung beside him. It was a lot heavier than I thought it would be, it’s impressive he can run around so quickly with it. Wait a second, the length of its nozzle seemed to be wrapped with...duct tape? Had it always been like that? Probably not a good idea to think about that right now. I pointed it at his arm and pulled the handle down, my eyes wincing. _I hope this damn thing still works_.

Considering the lack of agonized screams that then followed, thankfully, it still seemed to. A stream of blue light from the medigun’s nozzle fell over him and his arm began to set into place by itself. He managed to keep a straight face despite the obvious discomfort. The wounds on his chest and face that were still open also closed up smoothly. His shoulders relaxed and he breathed out a sigh of relief. He was still bloodied and worn from battle, but at least he appeared uninjured again. I set the medigun on the ground and turned to look back down at the kit for supplies.

I started to bandage some of the wounds on my chest, but then I heard a shuffling sound, and the gashes briefly gleamed with blue light and swiftly closed on their own. The bruises on my arms and legs also paled and disappeared. He was using the medigun on me? I know I showed him a shred of sympathy today, but I had still half-expected him to try to fill my face with syringes once he was healed again, or at least that he’d challenge me to a one-on-one fight. I turned around again to face him incredulously and stood up, seeing that he had already gotten up himself.

He read the question written on my face and responded. “We’ve already broken what few rules the Administrator has set for us, so I might as well return the favor. There’s only so much you can do with a medikit. Dankeschön, Fräulein Scout.” He gave me another one of his rare, gentle smiles, and my heart began to pound through my chest.

“. My name is .” There goes another bit of protocol thrown out the window today.

“Ludwig.”

I hadn’t expected him to give me his name in return.

He extended his hand out to me. On impulse, I wrapped my arms around him instead. He stiffens at first, taken aback by the gesture, but he eventually gives me a friendly pat on the back in return. I let him go after a few short seconds.

I picked my weapons back up from the ground and dusted them off. He took a moment to clean his glasses with a cloth. I offered him one last glance; he simply gave me a nod, and we headed our separate ways again, neither of us saying anything else or turning around to look back.

I wiped the blood and grime off of my face with my arm as I began to run back towards my side of the field, the dog tags around my neck clanging loudly. I cannot let this interaction, or any strange feelings towards the enemy, interfere with my job. This cannot happen again, ever. But still...

I wish I could see him again like this.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Haha wow this was my first fanfic so I hope you enjoyed it. I think if I wanted to make this Scout into a full-fledged OC, I'd name her Althea. 
> 
> Bonus points to anyone who can recognize what the title is a reference to :D


End file.
